Orange County Digest

Orange : Celebration to Honor Neonatalogy Pioneer

Dr. Louis Gluck, the "father of neonatalogy," will be honored at a celebration at UCI Medical Center in Orange Monday for his advancing the care of high-risk infants and for founding the first neonatal care unit in the United States 25 years ago.

The event will begin at 2 p.m. with a conference led by doctors who had worked with Gluck and will highlight his contributions to the care of premature and high-risk infants.

After the conference a dedication will be held to mark completion of a $350,000 remodeling project of the Infant Special Care Unit, which is equipped to care for premature and critically ill newborn infants. Former patients of the unit and their parents will attend the reception following the dedication.

Gluck, who is the director of neonatal and perinatal medicine at UCI, is considered to be the founder of neonatalogy. He developed the first medical department and intensive-care unit for the care of high-risk infants at Yale University in 1960. Gluck also worked at Stanford and at UC San Diego before he came to UCI in 1984 to expand the neonatal unit and continue his pioneering research into respiratory problems of premature infants.